“By the eternal gods, you won’t have the power placed there!” roared the chairman of the State Committee.

Now some one called to them from outside the door, repeating the rapping.

“When you say that, you’re confessing that the Republican party is a sneak, Presson,” declared the General.

The Duke came along to the table.  He ticked his forefinger against the paper that Waymouth was holding.

“Vard, you’re pledging yourself in advance of election to the most rabid of the prohibition fanatics.”

“I’m pledging myself to obey the one State law that occupies the most space in public attention, causes the most discussion, makes the most row.  It’s a damnable bloodsucker to be hitched on to any political party!  But it’s on ours, and I’m going to grab it with both hands!”

“Hold a proxy from the ramrodders, eh?” sneered the State chairman, thoroughly a rebel.

“No, nor from the State rumsellers.  If the people of his State want to have rum sold, let ’em vote to have it sold.  But as it now stands, they can’t enlist me to head the lawbreakers and shield the lawbreaking.  I’m through playing the hypocrite!”

“We’ve got to set ourselves above petty bickerings and personal differences,” interposed the Senator, cracking the party whip.  “I’m a Republican, first of all!”

“Talk sense, Pownal!” snapped the General, impatiently.  “This isn’t a political rally.  We’re grown men and friends that can talk plain.  His principles make a Republican—­or ought to—­not his protestations!  And establishing a system of low license and sheriff-made local option under a prohibitory law is unprincipled, and you know it!”

Thelismer Thornton, god of that particular machine that was then grinding so ominously and rattling so badly, felt that he needed a few moments in which to mend belts and adjust cogs.  He wanted an opportunity to think a little while.  He had discovered a new Waymouth all of a sudden.  He wanted to get acquainted with him.  He wished to find out whether he would be really as dangerous as his astonishing threats indicated.

The persistent man at the door was now clamorous.  The Duke strode that way and flung it open.  Whoever it might be, the interruption would give him time to think, to plan, to investigate.

The intruder was the Hon. David Everett.  He stepped in, and Thornton relocked the door after him.

Mr. Everett was not amiable.  His little eyes snapped from face to face suspiciously.  It was immediately and perfectly plain to him that he had forced admission to a conference that had not expected him, did not want him, and was embarrassed at finding him present.  In the state of mind they were in, the men in that room would have glowered at any one.  Everett detected something more than mere personal resentment at his intrusion—­he sniffed a plot against him.  There was no hand outstretched to him, no welcome, no explanation offered why these leaders of the party had met thus without intimation to him that anything was afoot.  Choleric red suffused his face—­it had been gray with passion when he entered, because a corridor filled with curious men is not a happy arena for a candidate shut out of committee headquarters.